Phillip Hudson: A Twist in a Historic Election

The Daily Telegraph | February 17, 2025

A trio of big events in Anthony Albanese’s life are set to coincide in the first week of March.

The Prime Minister will celebrate his 62nd birthday and the 29th anniversary of his election to Parliament (both on March 2).

A few days later he will overtake Kevin Rudd’s length of service as prime minister: two years and 286 days.

As he contemplates one of the biggest decisions of his life — when to call the election — the prize Albanese is hunting for (which Rudd never achieved) is to be only the third person in 40 years to be elected prime minister twice, joining the company of political legends Bob Hawke and John Howard.

It’s no easy task. The six other prime ministers in those four decades, some with magnificent egos, managed only one election win each.

Whatever the result, this year’s federal election will be history-making.

Peter Dutton has already made unwanted history as the first opposition leader in a century to lose a seat to a government at a by-election. Yet two years on Dutton is now favoured by voters to break a rule that has lasted more than 100 years that no person who has taken the opposition leader’s job immediately after their party has lost power has won the following election.

And could a twist be that Dutton achieves that victory thanks to winning seats in Victoria, the very state that delivered the embarrassing by-election loss of Aston.

A Dutton win, whether minority or majority, would also mean Albanese would take another record — certainly one he would not want — that has stood for 94 years.

No party has been thrown out of government after one term since James Scullin had the terrible luck to lead Labor to power on the eve of the Great Depression and was replaced by voters two years later in 1931 by a minority government. Could history repeat?

Unlike those before him who led their party from opposition to government, Albanese does not enjoy a strong parliamentary majority to give him a buffer.

John Howard’s margin was 40 seats when he won in 1996 and he lost half that in the subsequent GST election.

When Kevin 07 stormed to power his parliamentary margin was 16 seats and at the next election Julia Gillard barely hung on as a minority government.

And Tony Abbott’s 30-seat buffer in 2013 was almost eclipsed by Bill Shorten in a nailbiter against Malcolm Turnbull three years later.

But Albanese starts with a wafer-thin three seat majority and every major poll suggests if an election were held now, he would lose that majority.

Whoever holds the keys to the Lodge after the votes are counted and deals done will be making history one way or the other. As a majority or a minority.

If it’s Albanese and he can hang on long enough to celebrate five years as PM in 2027, he will become the eighth longest serving PM since Federation — overtaking all recent PMs as well as Labor icons Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam, Ben Chifley, John Curtin and three-time holder of the office Andrew Fisher.

If it’s Dutton, he will become the first PM born in the 1970s.